US20100115554A1

Movatterモバイル変換

Info

Publication number: US20100115554A1
Application number: US12/331,654
Authority: US
Inventors: Francois-Xavier Drouet; Corinne S. Fresko; Fabien Patrick Lanne; Jean-Luc Collet
Original assignee: International Business Machines Corp
Current assignee: International Business Machines Corp
Priority date: 2008-10-31
Filing date: 2008-12-10
Publication date: 2010-05-06
Also published as: US8875183B2

Abstract

A method of building an interactive display related to TV programs in an internet protocol television (IPTV) environment includes parsing a plurality of TV programs provided in an IPTV environment for display to a user. The step of parsing includes capturing an image in each TV program, identifying video content in each captured image, interpreting the video content, capturing audio data, identifying an audio content in each captured audio data, and interpreting the audio content for each captured audio data. The method further includes the steps of identifying a selected TV program by the user; determining a correlation level between the interpreted video and audio content of the selected TV program and the interpreted video and audio content of each of the other TV programs; determining TV programs other than the selected TV program; and building and presenting a mosaic display on a TV display including the selected TV program.

Description

CROSS REFERENCE TO RELATED APPLICATION

This application is related to commonly-owned, co-pending European Patent Application No. EP08305760 filed on Oct. 31, 2008, the contents and disclosure of which is expressly incorporated by reference in its entirety.

FIELD OF THE INVENTION

The present invention relates to a method, and system for implementing said method, for creating a dynamic TV display, and more specifically, a dynamic and personalized TV display in an internet protocol television (IPTV) environment.

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION

Television (TV) broadcasts are currently designed to deliver a consistent and static product for all users. Typically, a user watching television selects from viewing a multiplicity of prescheduled broadcasts. One shortcoming of current TV broadcasts is that there is little control by a user pertaining to how channels are presented. A further disadvantage of current TV broadcasts is that there is no relation between the presentation of channels and a users channel preference.

The term IPTV widely used in this document stand for Internet Protocol Television and is an umbrella term describing television (TV) and video delivered using internet technology instead of normal linear radio frequency (RF) broadcast. An IPTV solution is based on three groups of components as described below. Referring toFIG. 1 anillustrative IPTV architecture10 includes a triple play environment is one in which a plurality of services is provided to a user over an Internet Protocol (IP) transmission medium or IP network orbackbone14. The plurality of services provided to anend user18 over such a service includes, but are not limited to, TV live, Video, Video on demand (VOD), mail, games, voice over IP (VoIP), notification, chat, video conferencing, etc. Theend user18 may have a personal computer (PC)19b, a set-top box19cfor aTV set19ein theirhome19d, all connected to amodem19afor accessing theIP backbone14 such as the Internet.

Thehead end component22 includes a content provider and specific equipment needed to transmit and receive the digital assets (for example,satellite receiver24, and encoders26). Such equipment ensures the transport of digital assets onto theIP network14. Thehead end component22 provides a platform for the live content available and can also manage the dynamic information sent by abroadcaster32 for an EPG (Electronic Programming Guide). Thus, thebroadcaster32 is the main link between thehead end component22 and amiddleware component42.

Themiddleware component42 includes infrastructure ensuring the delivery of the digital assets to the end users, including, for example, IP network infrastructure, portal servers, data storage, and video on demand servers. The customer premises as the end user may include equipment or components installed at a user's home for consuming of the digital assets by the end users. Such devices are heterogeneous as the list of services provided to the user are numerous, and may include, for example, phones, personal digital assistant (PDA), set-top boxes, personal computers (PCs), digital subscriber line (DSL) modems, and/or wireless access point.

TheIPTV architecture10 shown inFIG. 1 provides every viewer with a personal relationship with a broadcaster through a transactional request/response mechanism, rather than picking up a broadcast sent to everyone. IPTV networks generally are based on one of two models, a closed model using a private IP network (local area network (LAN) or DSL, for example, cable TV), and an open model, using the public internet. Typically, when a user subscribes to an IPTV offer they receive a modem and a box which sits on or near theTV19e, or a set-top box19c. The IPTV service provides, for example, mail, liveTV, a program guide, personal video recording and video on demand provided by the service provider (for example, Verizon™, Telefonica®, France Telecom®). Live TV channels in an IPTV environment are transmitted to consumer set-top boxes19cusing IP multicasting technology. Each channel uses a different multicast group and the internet group management protocol (IGMP) protocol is used to leave or join a given group based on the TV channel selected.

IP multicast provides a method for one-to-many delivery of information packets (i.e., formatted block of data). Unicast is sending information packets to a single destination. Comparatively, broadcasting refers to transmitting a packet that will be received by every device on a network, limited to a broadcast domain. To achieve one-to-many delivery using IP unicast traffic, each information packet or datagram (i.e., from a service which does not notify the user if delivery fails) is sent to all nodes in a group, and thus is sent multiple times. Thus, a single datagram is sent, but all nodes process it, even those that are not interested. Broadcast delivery service is unsuitable for internetworks, as routers are designed to prevent the spread of broadcast traffic. With IP multicast, a single datagram is sent and forwarded across routers only to the network segments containing nodes that are interested in receiving it.

IP multicast traffic may be used for audio and video teleconferencing, distance learning, and data transfer to a large number of hosts. Mosaic displayed channels are specific TV channels gathered into a matrix, or mosaic display, of X by Z thumbnails of live channels available on the network on a single video channel. A user may then navigate through each thumbnail in the mosaic display to select a channel for viewing. The specific channels are encoded at the head end part of the IPTV infrastructure using dedicated hardware components mixing X by Z channels into a single video stream with X by Z audio channels. On existing digital video broadcasting (DVB) distribution channels (DVB-T, DVB-S, etc. . . . ) all the channels presented in the mosaic are statics, that is, the list of channels per mosaic are based on the head end configuration. The mosaic may be built by thehead end component22 which collects all the TV channels. Thehead end component22 reencodes the channels in one stream with a smaller format. Thus, the user typically enters a selection provided on the TV screen allowing scrolling through pages of mosaic TV channels and allows a selection of a channel. One disadvantage of a static mosaic is that the user does not have control of the mosaic and/or is unable to selectively change the mosaic. Another disadvantage of the static mosaic is the cumbersome manner that a user has to scroll though many pages of channel. Further, the channel description must include textual description as the image may not adequately indicate the channel content.

It would therefore be desirable to provide a method, and system implementing said method, for providing a TV display which reflects the user's preferences. It would further be desirable for the display to dynamically reflect the user's preferences in TV viewing.

SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION

In an aspect of the invention, a method of building an interactive display related to TV programs in an internet protocol television (IPTV) environment comprises: parsing a plurality of TV programs provided in an IPTV environment for display to a user, wherein the step of parsing includes: capturing an image in each TV program; identifying video content in each captured image wherein the video content comprises at least one object; interpreting the video content for each captured image; capturing audio data for each of the TV programs;

identifying an audio content in each captured audio data wherein the audio content comprises text and/or sound; and interpreting the audio content for each captured audio data;
identifying a selected TV program by the user; determining a correlation level using predefined rules between the interpreted video and audio content of the selected TV program and the interpreted video and audio content of each of the other TV programs; determining TV programs other than the selected TV program using the correlation level of the TV programs; and building and presenting a mosaic display on a TV display with the selected TV program and the plurality of other TV programs.

In another aspect of the invention, a system for building an interactive display related to TV programs in an internet protocol television (IPTV) environment includes a computer having a computer program stored on a computer readable medium for parsing a plurality of TV programs provided in an IPTV environment for display to a user. A metadata aggregator captures an image in each TV program. The meta data aggregator: identifies video content in each captured image wherein the video content comprises at least one object, interprets the video content for each captured image; capturing audio data for each of the TV programs, identifies an audio content in each captured audio data wherein the audio content comprises text and/or sound, and interprets the audio content for each captured audio data. The computer program further identifies a selected TV program by the user, and determines a correlation level using predefined rules between the interpreted video and audio content of the selected TV program and the interpreted video and audio content of each of the other TV programs; determining TV programs other than the selected TV program using the correlation level of the TV programs. A mosaic builder electrically communicates with a TV of the user and the metadata aggregator. A TV display of the user's TV presents a mosaic display using the mosaic builder. The mosaic display includes the selected TV program and the plurality of other TV programs.

In another aspect of the invention, a computer program product comprises a computer readable medium having recorded thereon a computer program for enabling a processor in a computer system to build an interactive display related to TV programs in an internet protocol television environment, the computer program performs the steps of: parsing a plurality of TV programs provided in an IPTV environment for display to a user, wherein the step of parsing includes: capturing an image in each TV program; identifying video content in each captured image wherein the video content comprises at least one object; interpreting the video content for each captured image; capturing audio data for each of the TV programs; identifying an audio content in each captured audio data wherein the audio content comprises text and/or sound; and interpreting the audio content for each captured audio data; identifying a selected TV program by the user; determining a correlation level using predefined rules between the interpreted video and audio content of the selected TV program and the interpreted video and audio content of each of the other TV programs; determining TV programs other than the selected TV program using the correlation level of the TV programs; and building and presenting a mosaic display on a TV display with the selected TV program and the plurality of other TV programs.

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS

These and other objects, features and advantages of the present invention will become apparent from the following detailed description of illustrative embodiments thereof which is to be read in connection with the accompanying drawings, in which:

FIG. 1 is a perspective view illustrating a prior art communications system;

FIG. 2 is a front elevational view of a mosaic TV display;

FIG. 3 is a front elevational view of a mosaic TV display according to one embodiment of the invention;

FIG. 4 is a block diagram of a system according to one embodiment of the invention for providing the mosaic shown inFIG. 3;

FIG. 5 is a flow chart of an embodiment of the present invention employing the system shown inFIG. 4; and

FIG. 6 is the embodiment of the mosaic shown inFIG. 3 with a title menu and exemplary pictures in the mosaic.

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION

The system and method of the present invention creates meta data (i.e., information about data) on TV channels received by a user on their TV. The audio and the video streams are parsed to create a database of the meta data. The meta data may be defined according to the audio part of the TV channels or based on objects included in the TV channels. The most pertinent TV channels are proposed to the user according to what the user is watching. In one embodiment of the present invention, a mosaic format as shown inFIG. 2 is presented to the user. The mosaic display dynamically presents the most pertinent TV channels based on their current watching and interests. In parallel, the TV channels proposed are recorded on a network personal video recorder (NPVR). Thus, the system of the present invention presents the user with channel selections, for example, on the TV screen which allows the user to select a channel by clicking on the TV screen, e.g., an interactive link or thumbnail. Thereby, the user's TV will go to the channel selected.

Referring toFIG. 3, another embodiment of the system of the present invention includes a dynamic mosaic presented on a graphical user interface (GUI)150 of a video channel composed of onemain TV channel154 andrelated TV channels162 based on user preferences. The dynamic mosaic can be used like a video browser where a current video channel is referenced as themain video channel154 in the center of the mosaic and all the others channels aggregated on the mosaic are related to one or more attributes of the main TV video channel. When a user navigates to another TV video channel other than themain video channel154, the mosaic150 is dynamically rebuilt based on the new mainTV video channel154 attributes and metadata together with a user profile.

As shown onFIG. 3, themosaic GUI150 includes themain video channel154 in the center of the mosaic150 which is currently the preferred video channel. Anarea158 of the mosaic150 includes a list of categories of TV channels available through themosaic application294 stored in amiddleware component290 on a computerreadable medium292 and communicating with a processor296 (shown inFIG. 4) in acomputer system289. For example, TV channels available may include movies, shows, sports, and soap operas.Area158 may be a hierarchical organization with categories and sub-categories, for example, sports, including tennis, soccer, and skiing. Each category and sub-category may have a new mosaic generated based on the user selection. A plurality ofTV channels162 are related to themain TV channel100 and positioned around a perimeter of themain TV channel100. Keywords are determined from attributes of themain channel100, to generate a keyword list of related TV channels which is displayed on themosaic application292 based the keywords pertinence to themain TC channel100. Atextual information area166 of the mosaic150 provides textual information related to themain TV channel154, for example, program name, timeframe, summary, and the like.

Referring toFIG. 4,system architecture200 according to an embodiment of the invention includes components to implement the dynamicmosaic application294 of the present invention. Ametadata aggregator250 gathers each TV channel and a list of related materials composed of other TV channels with relevant similarity with the current one and ordered by importance. The list of related TV channels can be made of other live feeds available on the IPTV infrastructure, but can also be gathered from other sources like video on demand catalogs, network personal video recording (NPVR) providers or any other accessible video server like internet video provider. The metadata for live TV channels is retrieved, in one instance, by using metadata embedded inside the live feeds, where for each channel some basic information can be retrieved, for example, title, genre, summary, timeframe. Alternatively, metadata can be gathered from a professional TV channel provider using an electronicprogram guide EPG210 which provides additional information on current and forecast programs including pictures, resume, actors, etc. Additional mechanism for generating metadata information include audio recognition onto live feeds, generating dynamic keywords, and image recognition on broadcasted video to generate metadata.

Metadata for non live TV channels is generated from video ondemand catalogs220 or othervideo server provider230 accessible from the same network, for example, internet video service providers For example, if one live channel is broadcasting an interview of a celebrity, the user can be interested in watching a movie where the celebrity is part of the cast, or seeing the celebrity on a video on demand provider such as YouTube®.

Another component of thesystem architecture200 is amosaic builder260 which links themetadata aggregator250 and the user premises equipment, e.g., settop box270. For example, when a user requests themosaic application292 while watching a TV channel or a movie using a middleware IPTV application a request is sent to themosaic builder260. The request is retrieved from themetadata aggregator250 and all the related video (live & non live) which is similar with the current watched program is displayed on the user TV screen, for example, using thescreen template150 shown onFIG. 3.

Themosaic builder260 provides the mosaic interface150 (FIG. 3). Themosaic builder260 includes generating the mosaic using parameters including, for example, a user identification (ID), a current channel ID, and generating categories, or sub-categories. The user ID parameter identifies each end user and allows themosaic builder260 to retrieve the associated user profile template & preferences. The current channel ID identifies themain video channel154 inFIG. 3 and allows themosaic builder260 to retrieve related video from themetadata aggregator250. A category tree of a selected menu item may include categories, and subcategories.

An example of the mosaic builder's260 steps described above for providing themosaic interface150 includes a GetMosaic method including the following steps:

1. GetMosaic (for example, user ID, current channel ID, category, sub-category);

2. Identify user ID parameter for each end user and allow the mosaic builder to retrieve the associated user profile template & preferences;

3. Identify the current channel ID identify the main video channel154 (FIG. 3) and allow the mosaic builder to retrieve related video to it; and

4. Determine category, subcategory, etc., in the category tree of the selected menu item, if any, (in this case the current channel ID is set to null) otherwise this parameter is not used.

Acomponent user profile280 is used by themosaic builder260, in two ways, firstly, if there is not enough related video to fulfill themosaic video elements162, then general user preferences are used to complement the mosaic with the preferred user channels, at least one per category (for example, sport, music, etc.).

To build the mosaic main menu158 (FIG. 3) with the user template preferences model, the model can be implemented as an XML document or file, stored in the computerreadable medium290, describing the entire user preferred categories and subcategories tree description. An embodiment of user template preferences (XML tags), including a mosaic XML main menu data representation, includes:


	<Main categories>
	<Category name=”News” priority=1 />
	<Category name=”Movie” priority=2 />
	<sub-categories>
	<Category name=”SciFi” priority=1 />
	<Category name=”Romance” priority=2 />
	</sub-categories>
	</Main categories>

The user template preferences XML file is used by themosaic builder260 to build the mosaicmain menu158 allowing the user to navigate through the list of channels available and organized in categories and sub-categories. The user set-top box270 (FIG. 4) receives from themosaic builder260 all the required information to build the mosaic GUT150 (FIG. 3).

The following embodiment of XML syntax (data representation) is used to represent the mosaic display100 (FIG. 2) information:


<Mosaic>
<main channel>
<channel ID=BBC URL=igmp://xxx.yyy.zzz.vvv>
<title ProgramID=1234>Breaking News</title>
<info>textual infos</info>
......
</channel>
</main channel>
<related channel>
<channel ID=BBC2 URL=igmp://xxx.yyy.zzz.vvv>
<title ProgramID=4321>Evening News</title>
<Thumbnail>http://xxx.yyy.zzz.vvv/channel?BBC2<thumbnail>
<info>additional textual info</info>
......
</channel>
<channel ID=VOD-A URL=rtsp://xxx.yyy.zzz.vvv/movieA>
<title>The movie</title>
<Thumbnail>http://xxx.yyy.zzz.vvv/movieA.jpg<thumbnail>
<info>this movie talk about...</info>
......
</channel>
</related channel>
</Mosaic>

Another component in thesystem200 is a thumbnail TV-Generator240 which is used when the user set-top box is not able to decode several IPTV video streams simultaneously (for example, unicast or multicast based). The thumbnail TV-Generator is dynamically invoked to generate screenshots of the requested live TV channel, the resulting image is then used to fulfill thevideo elements162 of the mosaic. Based on a timeout parameter, a request is sent by the IPTV middleware application290 (FIG. 4) to refresh the screenshot of a video element channel thumbnail to produce an animated image placed into the video element of the mosaic162 (FIG. 3).

For each TV Channel orvideo asset162 available as a related video element to the main channel154 (FIG. 3) themetadata aggregator250 maintains a table, for example, as follows:

TABLE

Channel ID	Program ID	Keywords	Category hierarchy

BBC	1234	News, Breaking	News/international/
		news, irak,	national/UK
		Pakistan, . . .
VOD-A	xxx	Movie, action,	Movie/SciFi/2007

In the table, the channel ID identifies the channel or video asset. The program ID uniquely identifies the program itself and allows retrieval of contextual information from external sources like EPG providers. The keywords are a collection of keywords associated with the program and are used to retrieve similarities with the main video. The category hierarchy is used to organize channels and programs into hierarchy trees facilitating the user selection.

Referring toFIGS. 4 and 5, aflowchart300 according to an embodiment of the invention illustrates the logic (e.g., a computer program) as an embodiment of the mosaic application294 (FIG. 4) used to generate the mosaic GUI150 (FIG. 3) and asample mosaic GUI400 inFIG. 6. An IPTV user watches regular TV channels,step304, the user can access themosaic application294 instep308 by selecting a dedicated button of its remote control or any other device able to send command to the set-top box19b(FIG. 1). Accessing the mosaic application294 (FIG. 4) starts with a request, instep312, sent to an HTTP network (for example, wireless IP transmission) from the mosaic builder260 (FIG. 4) using the GetMosaic method (described above) with the user ID and the current channel ID parameter filled. If the user selection came from the main menu, then only the category, sub-category parameter and the user ID parameter are used.

Instep316, the mosaic builder260 (FIG. 4) retrieves the user profile with all its preferences, e.g., the user's center of interest, favorite channels, etc. The mosaic builder260 (FIG. 4) builds a search request to themetadata aggregator250 which retrieves all the live and non live video assets filling the search request ordered by similarity importance. Instep320, themosaic builder260 uses the search report to create the XML syntax data (described above) response to the mosaic application294 (FIG. 4). Instep324, themosaic application294 used this XML response to build the GUI interface of the mosaic application. If the thumbnail TV generator240 (FIG. 4) is used, themosaic application294 starts a timer for a specified time period, for example a specified number of milliseconds, for each video element162 (FIG. 3) of a mosaic GUT400 (FIG. 6), instep328. Themosaic GUT400 is an example of a mosaic display wherein like elements have the same reference numerals as the GUT interface shown inFIG. 3. When a timeout occurs a request is sent to thethumbnail TV generator240 component to retrieve a new thumbnail image of the live channel to be displayed inside the mosaic GUT400 (FIG. 6). Then, the timer is restarted for the specified time period. Instep332, theapplication294 waits for the user to change the channel, and if the channel is changed the program returns to before step308 to re-generate the mosaic GUT400 (FIG. 6) as shown inFIG. 6.

Therefore, an advantage of the present invention is the dynamic mosaic dynamically proposing channels related to the main channel being viewed by the user. A further advantage of the present invention is the ability for the user to select the number of TV channels to add, and thereby view simultaneously, to the dynamic mosaic.

While the present invention has been particularly shown and described with respect to preferred embodiments thereof, it will be understood by those skilled in the art that changes in forms and details may be made without departing from the spirit and scope of the present application. It is therefore intended that the present invention not be limited to the exact forms and details described and illustrated herein, but falls within the scope of the appended claims.